Saturday, June 29, 2019

On the road again. . . 

We are in Seward, Alaska. Here’s the view out my window.

We’re parked on the bank of a stream that flows into the Gulf of Alaska.  Across the Gulf you can almost see Seward, Alaska.  The haziness in the photo is from the Swan Lake forest fire.

I’m going to make this post short so hopefully I’ll get it done and posted.  We’ve had a great trip so far.   The scenery, as expected, has been outstanding.

Malign Lake, Jasper, British Columbia

Stone Mountain Park, Canada

British Columbia, Canada

Mentasta Lake, Yukon, Canada

Willow Creek, Alaska

Kenny Lake, Alaska

Valdez, Alaska

Valdez, Alaska

Lowell Point, Seward, Alaska

The wildflowers have been abundant, especially dandelions.  I don’t remember seeing many on previous trips.  I don’t know the names of all of these flowers, so just enjoy.

      

The weather has been interesting.  This picture was taken June 7 in Alberta, Canada.

We’ve also had sleet, hail, thunderstorms, rain, and unfortunately, smoke from forest fires. That’s the haze in some of the photos.

But the animals have more than made up for any bad weather.  We saw an eagle in its nest with two eaglets in Jasper National Park, Canada.

Moose in the Northern Rockies

Swans in the Northern Rockies

Buffalo in the Yukon

Bear in the Yukon

We’ve also seen a fox, but the photo I have is a cell phone photo of a moving fox from a moving car. We’ve only seen one buffalo so far, but multiples of the other animals.

And, of course, we’ve been enjoying the company of our fellow travelers.  Left to right: Jim and Pat, holding Gunther, (Fritz stayed in the car), from California, Tom and Ann, from North Carolina, Betty and Tom (Leo, their dog is laying down), Jane (Betty’s sister) and Ron, Jane is holding Lilly, all from Minnesota and Deb and Steve, from Indiana.

It’s bedtime, so I’m off to dreamland (hopefully),

Deb

Friday, March 22, 2019

We have started our slow journey home and are in Savannah, Georgia, for a few days.

This is the view out our back window.  Not one of our best or worst.

But the lake the campground backs up to is a bird sanctuary.   We got here at 1 pm today and I already have these photos.

Swans.

I think these two were sleeping.  I couldn’t tell what they were.

A turtle and an anhinga. 

Another swan.

There are more swans here than I’ve ever seen in one place.  This is either one of their wintering grounds or a stop on their migration route.  

I last wrote from Pensacola, Florida.  When we left there, we drove through Panama City.  It is still suffering from the damage from Hurricane Michael in October of last year.  The streets are cleared, utilities seem to be restored, and stores that suffered minimal damage are open.  There is still debris everywhere.  It looks like they are concentrating on repairing what can be repaired before clearing away structures that can’t be repaired.  Here are a few photos.

The trees were broken off at 6 or 7 feet.  Miles of them. 

Our next camp was at Eastpoint, Florida.  Steve managed another ocean view.

This was south of where the hurricane came ashore and there wasn’t much damage that hadn’t been cleaned up.  We enjoyed the view for a few days and then moved on to Manatee Springs State Park.

No water view here. This is the view from our window.

But the wild life showed up.  Deer regularly walked past the campsite and a squirrel entertained us from a tree knothole.

We even saw a wild turkey.

What we didn’t see were manatees.  It had rained so much upstream that the water was high and muddy around the spring.  We were assured that there were manatees there, but we couldn’t see them.

Then it was on to Disney World and catching up with Natasha’s family.  We love staying at the Fort Wilderness Campground at Disney World. It’s very peaceful and seems less hectic than staying at one of the hotels.  Natasha’s family stayed at the conference hotel and we met up with them daily.

Maria got to be in the Lion King show.

When Natasha’s family isn’t with us at Disney, we take it easy.  We check out which days are the slow days (usually Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), hit a park, have a meal at one of the restaurants we like and ride a few rides.

Here’s one of the sunsets we enjoyed at Hollywood Studios.

We also had a visit from friends from Indiana, Travis, Kris and Claire.  They are crazy about Disney, too, and our visits overlap from time to time.  And met up with Chris, who I used to work with.

After Disney was a Belter family reunion in The Villages, Florida.  There were 30 people who came in to celebrate Uncle Eep’s 90th birthday. All of his children made it and some of the grandkids and great grandkids.

We’ve done a lot of visiting this trip; lots of relatives, friends from work and friends from our Alaska trip.   We’ll spend a few days here in Savannah and then head up the coast on our way to New Bern, North Carolina.  From there, we’ll head west toward home and be home by Easter.

Thanks to all of you who keep reading my infrequent blog.

Deb

Saturday, January 12, 2019

We are in Pensacola Beach, Florida.  This is our view out our back window of Pensacola Bay:

It’s a bit windy and a little cool (59 degrees) to take advantage of the beach today, but we are enjoying the view.  We haven’t seen any wildlife except a few sea gulls and pelicans.

I came down with a cold which turned into bronchitis when we returned from Disney, so I spent most of our time in Plano resting and sleeping.  Steve and Maria had lots of fun playing and engaged in one of their favorite Christmas pastimes, building a gingerbread house.

Maria turned 6 on January 4 and is in kindergarten at the local school this year.  She’s beginning to read and practices math and spelling every day.  She really enjoys the Dr. Seuss books and we all enjoy reading with and to her.

Her brother, Frankie, 8 months, loves to smile and chatter away.  I predict he’ll be a terror once he starts walking and talking!

We enjoyed our visit and hated to say goodbye, but we had to head to Florida so that we could be there when Natasha, Olga, Maria and Frankie arrived for Natasha’s veterinary conference in mid January.  While Natasha’s at the conference, the rest of us will be enjoying Disney World. 

We’ll be in Florida for quite awhile.  Natasha’s family will be back at Disney in mid February for the NBA All-Star Break. Natasha’s husband, Mike, works with the Dallas Mavericks and that is his only time off during the season.  We turned him into a Disney fan, so that’s where he wants to go on his break.

Steve’s Uncle Eep, who lives in the Villages, turns 90 March 1 and his kids and their cousins have turned the occasion into a reunion.  All of Eep’s kids and most of his nieces and nephews are gathering for the event.

We have a lot of family and friends in Florida and we’re still trying to figure out where we’ll be when.

But for right now, I’m enjoying where we are.

Deb

Thursday, January 10, 2019

We are camped at the Silver Slipper Casino on the Gulf Coast near Waveland, Mississippi, headed for Florida.

This is my view of the Gulf of Mexico from my window:

Steve’s at the nearby Stennis Space Center, where at least the Visitor Center isn’t closed due to the shutdown.

I’ve taken a walk on the beach, and as soon as I get this written, need to get back to organizing and putting stuff away after visiting Natasha’s family in Plano, TX.

December was a busy month for us.  We had scheduled maintenance on the trailer for the first week of December and wanted to leave home on Nov. 30 to drive the trailer to the Kansas RV Center in Chanute, Kansas.  Our trailer was built there in 2006.  They no longer build trailers, but do an excellent job of repair and maintenance.  

When I was packing in the trailer on Thursday, I turned on the water pump to flush the toilet. Steve rushed in to turn off the pump and say that water was gushing out under the trailer.  Uh oh.  When you’re in a trailer, you get water pressure one of two ways – a connection to city or campground water, or from a water pump.  Steve had had us connected to city water earlier without a problem, so we test that and that worked with no problem.  Whew!  We could still camp our way to Kansas.

We got up on Friday, November 30, and actually managed to leave home before noon.   This was the best we’ve ever done at leaving “on time”. We wanted to leave before noon so that we could make our first stop the Beef House at Covington, Indiana, for lunch. The afternoon trip went well and we found a campground for the night that still had water connections (it is winter in the Midwest and some campgrounds are closed and/or have the water turned off).   

We settled in, had dinner and went to bed.

I was up much earlier than usual and Steve hadn’t taken his shower yet.  Turns out, neither the gas or electric hot water heater was working. Campgrounds usually have showers, so not a big deal, but I certainly was glad we were headed to the repair shop and already had an appointment.  I started getting ready, went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and broke off the pedal that flushes the toilet!  Swearing was involved.

We had been going to take two days to drive to Chanute, but decided to “put the pedal to the metal” and get to Chanute that night, check into a hotel, and chill out on Sunday. So that is what we did.

Driving in the winter has its own pleasantness, assuming the weather isn’t bad.  If it’s a gray day, the bare trees appear black against the sky.  If it’s sunny and the skies are blue, the bare trees are brown and beige.  And in either case, we see hawks, perched in the trees, watching for prey.  

We are not good bird spotters at the best of times, but when the trees are bare, we managed to notice a fair number of hawks or hawk-like birds.

We arrived at Chanute, checked into the Holiday Inn Express and enjoyed our down day.  Steve got to watch the Big Ten Football Championship and I read and napped.

Monday morning, Steve delivered the trailer to the Kansas RV Center at 7 am and came back to pick me up, and head for the Kansas City Airport.  We were flying back to Indiana so that I could have surgery the next day.

I have had a lipoma on my right thigh for several years.  It was a hard patch under the skin that caused no problems – until this fall. One day I had gotten up from the computer and walked a few steps and suddenly I experienced excruciating pain if I tried to put weight on my right leg.  After a few minutes, I was able to limp to where I wanted to go.  Doctor visits, surgeon visits and an MRI later, it was determined that I needed surgery to remove the lipoma.  During much of this time, I was using a cane to keep some of the weight off that leg.

Surgery was scheduled for Dec. 4, we flew back from Kansas on Dec. 3.  Everything went well; I had a much bruised thigh and an incision. I could walk, mostly without the cane, immediately after surgery and took pain pills for about a week, just in time to fly back to Kansas and pick up the trailer.

I was wearing shorts most of the time during recovery, and some of the bruising showed.  The 5 and 7 year olds I encountered seemed to be fascinated by my injury and would asked to see it periodically.  I was surprised and touched by their interest and would assure them that it was getting better and was hurting less and less.

We picked up the trailer and headed for Plano, stopping for lunch at a restaurant in an old railroad depot that has great sandwiches, pies and cinnamon rolls.  The salads are good, too.

When we visit Natasha’s family in Texas, we usually park the trailer at a campground about ? hour away in Aubrey, Texas.  The first time we camped there (5 years ago) it was bordered by a horse farm.  Now there are housing developments everywhere and we just hope the campground will still be around for our next visit.

We stayed a few days in Plano and on the 17th we flew to Orlando.  I succumbed to an email for the Ultimate Christmas Package at Walt Disney World.  This was only the second year they had offered the package and it wasn’t widely advertised.  It was a 5 night, 4 day ticket package, with something special every day.  On Monday, we had two hours in the new Toy Story Land, 8:30 – 10:30.  Only package participants were there.  Tuesday night included admission to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, Wednesday was 8:30 – 10:30 pm in Animal Kingdom, including Pandora, Everest, and Dinosaur and a presentation of their Rivers of Light show.  Thursday was early shopping and the Christmas tree trail at Disney Springs (which we skipped) and Friday was a dinner with live entertainment at Epcot.

Since most of the events were in the evening and I expected my mobility to be limited, I booked us at Animal Kingdom Lodge.  This has been a bucket list item for us for awhile and this would be the first trip in several years without anyone else.  For those of you who aren’t Disney fans, Animal Kingdom Lodge has rooms which overlook savannahs where African animals roam.  Spending lots of time in the room gives you time to enjoy the animals. There’s no point in staying at the Lodge if you’re going to spend all day every day in the parks!

This was the view from our window.

There are 3 giraffes, two antelope and two storks, who seemed to be permanent residents of the pond area.  We also saw zebras, wildebeests, cattle, several other types of antelopes, ostriches, and African crown cranes.

It was particularly fun to step out on the balcony and listen to the comments of any kids who happened to be watching from their balconies.  They were amazed.

The African crowned crane elicited the comment “that bird has a Mohawk!”

Zebra grazing near the pond.

Ankole cattle and wildebeests.

The wildebeests were seen running on two separate occasions.  Steve thinks that in one instance they were chasing one of their own, who apparently had teed them off.  Every crowd has one!  Maybe he was just trying to get them some exercise.  

Giraffe.

We didn’t spend a lot of time in the parks; we’ll be back in January.  But we did manage to do some of our favorite things, including the Candlelight Processional (telling of the Christmas story in song) at Epcot and going on the safari ride at Animal Kingdom, where Steve managed to get our best picture ever of the lions.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them all awake and alert.  This was a late afternoon safari and we usually go earlier, so I’m sure that made a difference.

We thoroughly enjoyed the trip!

Deb

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Just a quick note before Purdue's game tonight.

All our family members are safe and even have electricity.  My niece in Raleigh lost electricity for awhile but it's back.  Joe reports his cable is out.

My brother, Joe reports: Just took a driving tour of New Bern. I know the national media showed a lot of devastation but people are already out and cleaning up. Of course there are families that got hit very hard but for the majority of the county I predict things will be back to normal in a matter of weeks. My family was lucky and we only need about a day of yard clean up. My neighbor's were not so lucky and they will take longer to get back to normal. Things in general are not too bad and the good folks of Craven county will be ok.

And just now, a report on my dad's place.  "Water got in dad's garage and his car was in the driveway and it got flooded.  His air conditioner is under the house, so that may be damaged."

My dad's house sits on at least a 3 foot if not 4 foot crawl space, so hopefully the interior is ok.

Given that, I'd guess that the water at my dad's was 8 to 10 feet higher than it's ever been. He's been there 30 years. 

Everyone is safe and everything else can be fixed.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

Go Boilers!

Deb

Thursday, September 13, 2018

We are home.

And we have CNN on and are watching the coverage of hurricane Florence as it hits the east coast.

My brother, Joe, and his wife, Lisa, are hunkered down in New Bern, North Carolina, with my dad. CNN has a reporter in New Bern, who is showing that there is already 2.5 feet of water in historical downtown New Bern. 

My nieces are farther north in North Carolina, Jamie in Raleigh, and Jessie in Ahoskie, North Carolina. They’ll get lots of rain, but should be okay.

Steve’s nieces, Jennifer and Meredith, live in Charleston, South Carolina, and have evacuated to their parents in Palm Coast, Florida.

So, everyone is safe and sheltered.  But we’ll be keeping our eye on the storm.

Deb

Monday, August 20, 2018

We are in Spearfish, South Dakota.  We’re not supposed to be here, but when we left Spearfish on Saturday and headed for Custer, South Dakota, the truck had other ideas.  About 15 miles out of town, headed up a hill, the truck flashed a message “cutting power” and did.  Steve managed to get us mostly off the road and we looked at each other.

We had some trouble with the DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) distribution mechanism last year around this time.  The truck had given us a similar message, except it said cutting power in 99 miles. We were camped in a town with a Chevy dealer, and while it took a few days, it was all repaired relatively quickly and we went on our way.

Luckily, Saturday we had cell service and I found that the nearest Chevy dealer was back in Spearfish. While Steve worked with Good Sam Roadside Service checking on a tow, 3 different people stopped by to help.  One checked under the hood for loose hoses; he’d had trouble with one that morning.  And another suggested turning the engine off for a while, which we did. I called the campground we had stayed at the night before to get us a space for the night.

After a bit, we turned the engine on to see if we could at least get completely off the road. The check engine light was still on, but the warning message was gone, so we tried to get to someplace we could turn around and head back to the campground.  We made it back to the campground without any problem.  By now it was Saturday afternoon and the service department closed at noon and would open again Monday morning.

We had a restful Sunday and got some laundry done.  Monday, bright and early, Steve had the truck at the Chevy dealer.  The DEF system was fine.  The message occurred because the turbo charger was over pressure and then under pressure, so the computer shut everything down.  They ran a series of checks and couldn’t find anything to fix. We’ll watch everything on the way home, but should be good.

We’ll skip our stay in Custer this trip and resume our trip home on Wednesday.  We should be home by August 28th.

Before we left the north section of Theodore Roosevelt National Park last week, I did get a picture of the Little Missouri River that runs through all sections of the park.

We spent 2 and half days in the south section of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and really enjoyed our time.  We camped in the town of Medora, which pretty much surrounds the national park entrance. 

The scenery in the south section of the park was very like the north section – colored layers of odd shaped hills.

But we had more luck with animals in the south section.  First we saw wild horses.

We saw a total of 6 wild horses on our drive through the park, always in pairs.

We came across a large herd of bison.

The bison were totally ignoring their audience.

And last, we saw hundreds of prairie dogs.  This one let me get a good picture of him.

We never found any big horn sheep this summer at all, which was a disappointment.  

The town of Medora, where we were camped, was quite interesting.  It has a permanent population of 112, but is quite the bustling tourist town in the summer.  It was founded in 1883, about the same time that Roosevelt visited.  The founder was a French nobleman Marquis de Mores. He named the town Medora, after his wife.  His plan was to grow cattle in North Dakota, slaughter it and ship it to Chicago in refrigerated train cars (refrigeration provided by ice).  He built his meat packing company, but hadn’t planned on the Chicago beef people (who shipped live cattle to Chicago and fattened them on corn before slaughter) teaming up with the railroads to thwart his business plans.  He and his wife left Medora after three years.

But his impact on the town is still evident.  The town is neatly laid out according to his plan.  Several buildings from that time remain.  One is the small Catholic Church that his wife commissioned.  The brick maker for that church also built a home for Medora’s parents and the chimney for the meat processing plant.  All three still stand and the bricks seem pristine. 

One of the other buildings that remains is the home the Marquis built for himself.  The Marquis and his wife, Medora, considered it a hunting lodge, while the locals called it the Chateau.   While large, with 10 bedrooms, it is a plain white building with a red roof, sitting on a hill overlooking the Marquis land.  (Steve and I managed not to take a picture of it.) The de Mores took their square grand piano with them when they left, but left the other furnishings.  It remained in the family until it was given to the state in 1936.  Most of the original furnishings are still in the house, which is quite unusual.

Medora has managed to survive in spite of its small size.  The small town decided to put on a show to commemorate the 100th birthday of Theodore Roosevelt in 1958.  It was staged in a local natural amphitheater.  It and a succeeding show struggled for several years before Harold Schaefer bought the amphitheater.  He was president of the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park and Badlands Association, and founder of the Gold Seal corporation (anyone remember Mr. Bubble?).  He poured money and talent into the production.  Today it manages to draw over 100,000 people during the summer season. The Schaefer family gave the amphitheater to the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation in 1986.

The foundation runs many things around town.  The RV park we stayed in belongs to the foundation and they are responsible for the community pool, playgrounds and parks.  This was one of the most imaginative playgrounds I’ve seen.  It resembles an old west town and the kids all flock to it.

Medora also holds a “Pitchfork Steak Fondue” buffet dinner before each performance.  It is a unique experience and actually tastes quite good.  Most of the attendees to the performance attend the dinner, so it’s a good money maker. And everyone takes pictures of the steaks being cooked.

For a small town, its working it’s tail off to stay alive and doing a good job of it.

Deb